Parkin is a gingerbread cake traditionally made with oatmeal and black treacle, which originated in northern England. The origin buckwheat groat bread the word parkin is unknown.
The first published dated reference to parkin was collected from 1728 from the West Riding of Yorkshire Quarter Sessions when Anne Whittaker was accused of stealing oatmeal to make parkin. Brought ales and parkin and perry. Parkin is virtually unknown in the south of England. It is eaten in an area where oats were the staple grain for the poor, rather than wheat. 1750 sweetness was not a characteristic of everyday food.
Honey cakes had a special festive significance. They were baked to be hard, but after storage for a couple of weeks they regained their moisture becoming soft and even sticky. Though parkin and tharf cake appear to be synonymous, all parkins generally were sweet tharf cakes. Parkin and tharf cake were used interchangeably in Lancashire and South Yorkshire until 1900. Over the 500 years the recipe and taste of these cakes have changed considerably. It was the food of the poor. Ovens were rare in the houses of the poor, and they generally had no access to public bakers before the 1820s, so the cakes were cooked on griddles or bakestones on an open fire.
In southern Lancashire and West Yorkshire, parkin is linked to the Guy Fawkes Night celebration. Jennifer Stead, in her study Prodigal Frugality, identifies the link between Guy Fawkes and parkin as the bonfire. The Celtic festival of Samain, the festival of the dead on 1 November, was celebrated with special cakes and bonfires. It was Christianised into All Hallows by the church in 837 A. The flour used in parkin in England is self-raising, containing a small amount of chemical leavening agent. If this is not available, or if the proportion of oatmeal is high, it is essential to add a leavening agent, e. One of the key features of parkin is that it retains its texture well.
It is baked to be hard, but after storing in a sealed tin or box for several days, it becomes soft again, the texture that is intended. Pask and the feeste of therf looves was after the secunde day. Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme. Traditional Food East and West of the Pennines. How to make the perfect parkin”.
Not to be confused with the groat coin, or grain grits, or the maize porridge grits. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Main ingredientsany grains such as oats, wheat, barley, millet or rye etc. Groats can also be produced from pseudocereal seeds such as buckwheat.
Groats are nutritious but hard to chew, so they are often soaked before cooking. Groats are used in soups and porridges. Groats of many cereals are the basis of kasha, a porridge-like staple meal of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. In North America kasha or kashi usually refers to roasted buckwheat groats in particular. In North India, wheat groats are known as dalia and are commonly prepared with milk into a sweet porridge or with vegetables and spices into salty preparations. Parboiled and cut durum wheat groats, known as bulgur, are an essential ingredient of many Middle Eastern dishes such as mansaf and tabbouleh. Groats are also used in some sausages, such as black puddings.
